Ok My D5100 arrived today. Please explain Live view,I have no picture on the screen till hit live view. my Camera was made in Thailand and the lens made in Thailand not Japan any more . even my old Fz100 pana I had was made in Japan with quality lenses. so I am not sure if I have bought the best camera.

Hi eddie.
It isn't set to ON by default, as most modern point & shoot/super zooms cameras that don't have a viewfinder.
Mostly I use the viewfinder to frame & take pics & don't need live view. (old school I guess) but you can use it instead of the viewfinder if you prefer. It does run the battery life down quite quickly though.

I tend to switch it on if I want to zoom in on what I intend to photograph (press the + button while in live view) to get a `closer look` especially if manually focusing.

It's also used for filming/video.

Don't worry too much about were they are manufactured, although if/when you decide to start adding to your lens collection & buying better quality/faster lenses, they tend to be made in Japan. You get what you pay for in general.

My passion is outdoor photography (scenics/wildlife). Rarely do action work. Lot's of outdoor recreation and family shots. I'm looking at the D5100. Any thoughts on that?

My thought is to buy the body and lenses separately. This way I get to have some choice in lens selection. I think I can get the new body on ebay for $650.00 US. I think I'll need a 70-300 zoom and an 18-55 zoom to start. Any advice on this front?

It seems the camera is able to disable the flash in the program modes, but not in manual???? Nothing in the manula suggests otherwise. I have to assume manual mode would allow you to turn off the built in flash. ANyone else run into this?

Thanks, I'll look into that. I wonder if Sigma is also a viable alternative? I don't want to degrade the camers performance with a poor quality lens.

I have just received my Sigma 70-300mm and i think for the £99 i paid for it, it is a superb lense. It has Auto focus (although a little noisy) it is quite heavy ( i like this ). It focuses quickly IMO.

It seems the camera is able to disable the flash in the program modes, but not in manual???? Nothing in the manula suggests otherwise. I have to assume manual mode would allow you to turn off the built in flash. ANyone else run into this?

I'm sure you can hold the flash button on the side and set the flash type in the window by turning the thumbdial even in manual mode

I've been trying to decide between the Canon 600 & 650 or the Nikon D5100 and think I've decided upon the Nikon.

I have a 2 year old, so I believe there will be a lot of photo's chronicling his progress, but we also live near rain-forest, so we have plenty of flora and fauna on our doorstep. I'm not an bird watcher by any stretch of the imagination, but I suspect with a better camera, I may start noticing more and wanting to capture what I see.

On top of this, my wife is a bit of an artist and will no doubt want to capture a range of shots for inspiration.

So at the moment I am unsure as to whether to just go for the twin lens kit or to go for something like the Tamron 17-50 or Nikkor 18-70 coupled with the Nikkor 70-300 in place of the kit and suck up the increased cost for those lenses.

My other option is to consider the 18-200 or the 28-300 Nikkors.

In saying that, part of me thinks I should just get the body with 18-55mm SIMPLY to understand the camera and what it is I want from it rather than getting all excited now and second guessing my preferences.

Hello TomI don't think that you will be disappointed with the D5100 but you could maybe think a bit more about your lens choice. If you have a bit of flexibility in pricing my own suggestion would be that you look at the Nikkor 16-85mm as a go-to lens. It costs more than the 18-55mm kit lens but results have been consistently good with most users and you can see lots of examples on this site.My own start to Nikon life was a D7000 and 50mm f1.4 lens. That lens covered all eventualities until I got the 16-85mm and then that became the lens I used far more than anything else. The 70-300 VR that you mention, followed. From my own experience, if you can find the cash and the swivelling screen isn't a "must have," you could do much worse than look at a combination of the D7000, now that prices have fallen significantly, and the 16-85mm lens.

As always it depends what you want to do and you have identified a wide range of interest, as most of us do. I had taken on board the advice of the knowledgeable people on this and other sites and aimed for the best lens I could afford at the time. That was the 50mm f1.4, which would also be usable on FF should I ever get there (I have now). It was all I had for several months until I could afford a second lens and that was when I got the 16-85mm. The 50mm and D7000 combination was/is good enough to allow pretty decent crops but a zoom can be good fun. Perhaps with hindsight, given that my interests lie more along landscape lines than anything else just now, I should have gone for the 35mm f1.8 as a starter but the 50mm was better for portraits, one of your main "wants."

Don't forget second hand kit. There are good prices available from reputable dealers. I had a wide zoom that was second hand and no complaints at all. Same with the cameras. Whatever you start with, if you're bitten you will be adding stuff later!